As the sport of skiing increases in popularity, demand on large scale existing commercial facilities in developed ski areas increases. This results in longer lift lines, and correspondingly more time spent by skiers waiting as opposed to skiing. Additionally, there are numerous areas on public and private property which would provide excellent ski slopes, but for the fact they are too remotely located or do not receive a sufficient sustained adequate snow base to justify the installation of commercial ski lifts.
Portable, small-scale lift devices have been developed to enable access to remote areas. However, such devices are typically unduly expensive, unreliable, or require an inordinate amount of time to set up and take down. Small scale lift devices are sold for example by the Dopplemayr Company of Wolfort Austria; Pomagalski S. A. of Grenoble, France and Borer Maschinenbau A. G. of Schweiz, West Germany. Such lifts most always include large circumference pulley drive wheels about which an endless loop of tow rope/cable is driven. The pulley drive wheel is positioned at one of either of the extreme ends of the enclosed loop, with an idler pulley received at the opposite loop end. The tow rope/cable is received about 180.degree. of the circumference of the drive wheel pulley and idler pulley.
With only a 180.degree. wrap around the drive wheel, a very large preloaded tension must be provided between the cable and wheel to assure adequate gripping force to drive the cable under load. Typically, large, heavy counterweights are employed at the idle end of the path for providing adequate tension in the cable. Other portable ski lift devices are shown, by way of example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,368,498 to Doveri; 3,739,728 to Thompson; 4,023,572 to Elsing; and 4,611,542 to Pivarunas.
Various aspects of the invention disclosed herein improve upon such teachings of the prior art in producing a reliable, lower cost, portable snow skier rope towing system which is capable of being assembled and disassembled in a comparatively easy manner. Such will be apparent from the continuing discussion.